Jesus, Bearer of Good News

In today’s Gospel, Jesus enters the synagogue, as He had always done during the Sabbath.  He is handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and opens to the passage which reads:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.

This is Jesus, the Son of God, reading this passage. Jesus tells us that the Father anointed Him “to bring glad tidings to the poor,” to us, that He “has been sent [by the Father] to proclaim liberty to captives,” yes to us; and to bring “recovery of sight to the blind,” to you and me, to free us from our oppression!

Like the Jews who were listening to Jesus and who dismissed him, saying “Is he not the son of Joseph,” do you and I find a reason to reject His message?  Do we choose to remain blind, oppressed, unfree because Jesus, in our minds, is only the son of Joseph, not the Son of God sent by the Father to bring us good news of salvation? On the one hand, do we dismiss God’s message because we do not like the one who delivers it?  On the other hand, when we are the instrument that God invites to proclaim the Gospel, to share our faith, do we resist because, after all, whom am  I, I’m only so and so’s son/daughter!